Pantech Chairman to Step Down, Company Plans Furloughs

Park Byeong-yeop, the vice chairman of Pantech, announced today that he will resign from his post. Park founded Pantech in 1991 and served as its leader for more than a decade. He cited the company's poor smartphone sales performance in recent years as the reason for his departure. Further, Pantech is restructuring its finances and is asking 800 employees (about 25% of its total workforce) to take a voluntary six-month leave of absence. Verizon Wireless sells the Pantech Perception, an Android smartphone. It is one of the only Pantech devices to reach the U.S. this year.